Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of tennis or any character used in this story
~O~O~O~
Finally the tennis team was going to have their first official practice. Of course, since everyone is pretty much obsessed with tennis, they had been practicing anyway. This is just the first official practice.
There was one slight problem, which was neither of their schools had any tennis courts! Luckily, Yukimura already thought of this and worked out a simple solution.
Dear teammates,
Please remember tomorrow we are meeting at 7:00am at the street courts near the metro station. Attached is a map. Please don't be tardy.
Your dear captain,
Yukimura Seiichi
~O~MAPMAPMAPMAPMAP~O~
As seen in the email, Yukimura had apparently already designated himself as team captain. Something about having 'previous experience.' Mostly, everyone didn't care. There was just one annoying person, who always seemed to talk back and have opinions about things. [no, not Mizuki]
"You can't just declare yourself as captain! Aren't we supposed to vote on this or something?" Shishido asked.
"Did you vote for your previous captain?" Sanada inquired.
"Well no…" Shishido muttered sheepishly. Everyone knows Hyotei's tennis team wasn't democratic by any stretch, with Atobe Keigo as captain of the team.
"And, do you have a better idea of who would make a good captain?" Yukimura asked sweetly, like he was talking to a small child.
Fuji is a definite no, too creepy. On that same note, no to Mizuki. Kikumaru is another no, too hyper. Jirou is too sleepy. Marui might be okay, but he's too laid back, and especially with his former captain and vice captain here he'd never do it.
"Err…" Shishido stumbled.
"I thought so" Yukimura smiled.
~O~O~O~
At the first official practice, the first order of business was, naturally, to designate the regulars positions for the upcoming Kanto tournament. In a normal tennis club, they would have some kind of intra-school ranking tournament and divvy up the positions that way. But, according to Yukimura, it would be faster to assign positions based on the order people joined the club. When the team members arrived at the street courts, a sign was posted (in calligraphy) on the gates.
The ranking looked like:
Singles 1: Yukimura Seiichi
Singles 2: Sanada Genichirou
Singles 3: Fuji Shyusuke
Doubles 1: Shishido Ryou and Kikumaru Eiji
Doubles 2: Marui Bunta and Akutagawa Jirou
Reserve: Mizuki Hajime
"Hmm? Why am I paired up with Jirou-kun?" Marui mused thoughtfully, chewing his green apple gum.
If Jirou were there, he probably would have said something along the lines of "What? Marui-kuuun! You don't want to be my partner? Why? Why?" Next to Yukimura, Jirou was probably the most excited about the formation of the tennis team, because it meant he got to play on the same team as two of his tennis idols, Fuji and Marui! In preparation for the first official practice, he even set five separate alarms on his iphone. Too bad his phone ran out of battery overnight.
"Don't be afraid of Akutagawa and his man-crush, Marui." Fuji chided, smirking.
"It's not that! It's just our play styles don't really mesh well together, Jirou-kun practically copied my techniques." Actually, Marui was pretty cool with Jirou's idol-obsession. It meant at least someone was recognizing his genius talent.
"Well, if you hadn't already noticed, we have three 'serve and volley' players and only one 'counter puncher,' so some of us will have to make sacrifices." Yukimura stated. "Besides, I thought you called yourself a genius, Marui, this shouldn't be too much of a set-back."
"Well, I'm an 'all rounder,' so I could—" Mizuki started.
But, Fuji quickly cut him off, whispering, "Don't even think about it Mizuki" in a eerie low voice only audible to the former manager's ears.
"What if I pair up with Marui, Fuji pairs up with Kikumaru, and Jirou moves up to Singles 3? Fuji and Kikumaru have played doubles together before, and Jirou usually plays singles anyways." Shishido offered.
"What?!" Eiji screamed, causing everyone to cover their ears in pain. "How dare you try and break up the 'Gilver pair?'"
"The what?" Shishido and everyone else looked at Eiji in confusion.
"Gilver Pair, the combination of the Golden Pair and Silver pair. A.K.A the tennis world's newest hottest coolest thing of this year!" Eiji stated emphatically.
"Did you just come up with that right now?" Marui asked, amused.
"Yeah, so?" Eiji retorted, dramatically placing a hand on his hip and giving Marui 'a look'.
"Ahh, well, it can't be helped. We wouldn't want to break up our precious 'Gilver pair,' so we'll leave things as they are." Fuji reasoned.
"Whatever, Jirou-kun and I will figure something out. Well, if he ever shows up to practice, that is." Marui sighed, blowing a bubble with his gum.
Just then, the diligent Sanada, who had been dutifully running laps like they were probably supposed to be doing, marched over to the little gang of tennis enthusiasts.
"I had heard about this happening from Atobe. This isn't acceptable behavior from a tennis regular!" Sanada stated.
"Hmm. I had hoped having Marui on the same team as Akutagawa would keep him awake. But…it seems I'm mistaken" Yukimura chimed in.
"fufufu. If this keeps up Akutagawa won't be able to keep his spot as a regular. When that happens I'll—" But, Mizuki promptly shut his mouth when looked up to see a pair of piercing blue eyes giving him a death glare.
"Okay, enough wasting time! 50 laps around the courts!" Yukimura commanded, leaving everyone in a frenzy to run around the fringes of the street courts.
~O~O~O~
As he wore his old mustard yellow Rikkai jersey draped around his shoulders Yukimura realized just how ridiculous everyone looked running around the courts. No—not because they were running around some random street tennis courts on display for all of Tokyo to see. Their outfits just didn't match. This wouldn't do at Nationals.
After practice Yukimura decided to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the topic of team uniforms. After showering and changing into normal clothes the teammates moved to an empty classroom back at their school. Yukimura stood at the front of the classroom, while everyone else sat in the little desks like obedient students.
"I know it doesn't seem like such an important topic, but think about when we play in tournaments, it will look unprofessional if we don't have coordinating uniforms. That is why we need to vote on the color of our new uniform." Yukimura began.
Eiji's hand quickly shot up into the air. Without waiting to be called on he began talking, "I think it looks kinda cool like this! All of our different outfits together, it's like a rainbow!" Eiji babbled. "And a rainbow symbolizes togetherness, and unity, and friendship. Like us, because we came from different schools, but now we are together as friends! And-"
Realizing that he was rambling about nothing, Eiji stopped his monologue and looked around the room awkwardly.
"ehehe, oops, I got a little carried away…."
"It's okay, Eiji." Fuji said quietly, leaning over to put a sympathetic hand on his friend's shoulder. "I agree though that we need new uniforms. My vote would be for a light-beige uniform. It's a classic look and wouldn't distract from our playing"
"Wah, how boring Fujiko!" Eiji whined. His thinking was the exact opposite of Fuji's. He wanted something bright and colorful that would really make them pop and stand out in the crowd.
"I agree, booorrring." Mauri nodded, blowing a bubble.
"Lame." Shishido chimed in
"I like it. It's simple." Sanada stated.
"Quiet!" Yukimura shushed as he finished writing the word "beige" on the blackboard. "Everyone needs to have an opportunity to state their ideas and then we'll do an anonymous vote"
Mizuki was sitting in the back of the class quietly twirling his hair with a mischievous grin. He also liked the idea of a beige uniform, but he hated to agree with Fuji. So, Mizuki opted for another color he likes, "How about lilac?"
"Lame"
"How about RAINBOW!" Eiji shouted, not giving up on his little unity-togetherness-friendship spiel.
"That would be too expensive." Sanada chided. And it would look absolutely ridiculous he added to himself
Now Yukimura had beige, lilac, and RAINBOW written on the blackboard. "Any other suggestions?"
"I like red! How about red?" Marui added.
"Finally, a freakin' normal color!" Shishido agreed.
"I like that! Yukimura change mine!" Eiji shouted rather loudly, waving his hand in the air insistently.
Someone really needs to remind him to use an inside voice. "Eiji, remember we're putting all the choices up on the board and voting later, okay?" Yukimura patiently reminded, in the same tone he had often used with Akaya when they were teammates.
Now the board said: beige, lilac, RAINBOW, red…and mustard yellow.
Wait, mustard yellow? Who actually put that as one of the choices?
"If there are no further suggestions, please take out a piece of paper and a pen so we can begin the anonymous voting." Yukimura coolly asserted.
"Wait! Who put MUSTARD YELLOW as one of the choices? It's like the ugly Rikkai-dai uniform, I don't wanna wear that!" Eiji cried.
Yukimura and Sanada both shot a death glare in Eiji's direction. "Mustard Yellow is my choice." Yukimura stated. "It's very classy and sophisticated." Unlike the color someone chose
With that, the teammates began the anonymous voting. Each member wrote down what color they like the best and then put it in the box at the front of the room.
"Ah, sorry I'm late!" An unmistakably familiar voice called from the classroom door. And no, it wasn't Jirou. Unfortunately, it looked like he wouldn't be able to participate in voting for the new uniform color.
"Renji! You're just in time!" Yukimura greeted his old friend. "Renji is the unbiased 3rd party who is going to count the votes!" Yukimura explained to the 'class'
"Unbiased my arse." Shishido muttered. Looking around the room there were currently 4 Rikkai alumni (counting Renji), 1 Hyotei alumni, 1 St. Rudolph Alumni, and 2 Seigaku Alumni. Plus, that data guy was friends with Yukimura and was probably going to do something to help make sure they all walked around in gross mustard yellow jerseys.
"I am almost positive that there will have to be a revote, but I will count these anyways." Renji said, quickly thumbing through the 8 votes. "Ah, yes, just as I suspected…"
"Revote? Why?" Yukimura asked in (maybe pretend) shock.
"You can't have red as your tennis uniform color, because another team has already taken that color. My team."
There were a couple moments of silence as Renji looked at the other color choices Yukimura had written on the blackboard.
"The other color choices seem fine" His eyebrows furrowed, "except for RAINBOW, that's against the rules. Too distracting."
"Ah, sorry everyone I should have checked to see what color other schools were wearing first." But of course, Yukimura wasn't really sorry. This just gave his mustard yellow another chance to become the new uniform color.
With red and RAINBOW now crossed off of the list, the blackboard now read: Beige, Lilac, Mustard Yellow
"Guys," Shishido whispered to Eiji and Marui, "We have to coordinate our voting, or else we're all going to be wearing that disgusting mustard yellow jersey." Remembering that Marui was previously a member of the team that wore said mustard yellow jerseys Shishido quickly added, "No offense, Marui."
"None taken." Marui was pretty sure the only person who actually liked the obnoxious bumblebee jerseys was Yukimura. Possibly Sanada too. Although yellow was kind of a bright color for samurai Sanada.
"Are we gonna choose beige or lilac?" Mauri asked, hesitantly. The question was kind of like asking to make a choice between Fuji or Mizuki.
But surprisingly, Eiji didn't hesitate in answering, "Definitely lilac. Beige is too boring for my taste!"
"Are you sure?" Marui answered in surprise. Fuji and Eiji were best friends. Marui wasn't sure Eiji was thinking of the full consequences of his actions.
"What other choice do we have? Besides the voting is anonymous, he'll never know!" Eiji winked mischievously.
~O~O~
Renji began counting the votes for the second round, even though he already knew the outcome. Originally, he was going to write how many votes each color got on the board, however after seeing that mustard yellow only got 1 vote he decided against it. Better to not let Yukimura know that Sanada didn't vote for the mustard yellow as expected. But it was Ii data.
Finally Renji announced the result. "Lilac wins."
"What how?! Was it close?" Yukimura seemed uncharacteristically flustered at the outcome.
"Yes, very very close." Better to not let him know he was the only one who voted for Mustard Yellow.
"Ah, well there's no helping it. I guess we will have lilac uniforms." Yukimura said quietly, more to himself.
"But….I have some ideas about the design of the uniform! I was thinking of a big black horizontal stripe right across the chest." Yukimura motioned to where the black stripe on the Rikkai uniforms usually was.
"Oh, brother…" Shishido muttered, rolling his eyes.
It was getting late. Nobody really cared that much about the design of the uniform and everyone wanted to go home.
"I'm cool with that. Let's just call it a day and go—"
"Beige stripe." Fuji's icy tone cut Mauri off mid-sentence.
"Can't Fuji just let the whole Mizuki thing go already?" Marui looked at Eiji incredulously.
"I don't really care so much about the color, as long as we can have the stripe" Yukimura negotiated, nodding his head.
"Yay! This is great! Now everyone wins! Mizuki gets his lilac uniform, Yukimura gets his stripe, and Fuji gets his beige!" Eiji cheered, jumping up on his desk triumphantly.
"So who exactly will be paying for these new uniforms? Or are you suggesting that we pay for them out of pocket, Yukimura?" Sanada inquired.
It was a legitimate question. They were a newly formed club without many funds and new uniforms weren't cheap. Everyone remained silent. It was obvious that no one had really thought through this very carefully. Maybe lilac uniforms with a beige stripe were just a mere pipe dream.
"I vote Jirou-kun to pay for the new uniforms!" Marui suddenly spoke up.
"I second that. He's not here today and he can definitely afford it." Shishido agreed.
"So, it's settled then. Akutagawa will pay for our new uniforms. Marui, I'll leave you in charge of informing him." Yukimura said.
"Ah, well, I think the one to inform Jirou-kun of this news will be…Kikumaru!" Mauri flashed a toothy smile pointing a finger in Eiji's direction.
~O~O~
(1):
serve and volley player = person who plays at the front of the net, with 'serve and volley' like Marui, Jirou, Eiji
Counter puncher = 'defensive baseliner' like Shishido
all rounder = has aspects of every tennis style like Mizuki